Rob Bergeron

I think we're in the NIL era of real estate where everyone needs to earn everyone's business,

Ed Mathews

If you're within three feet of me, we're probably talking about real estate, much to my family's chagrin. But here's the thing, most people see 7% rates and freeze. I see opportunity. They're waiting for the perfect deal, and well, I've analyzed thousands of them, and perfect just doesn't exist. So I talk to operators across every asset class, flippers, multifamily syndicators, note investors, and whatever else is working. No sales pitches allowed, just real lessons from people actually doing it. I'm Ed Mathews, and this is Real Estate Underground. Greetings and salutations, real estate undergrounders. Buckle up, people. This is gonna be a fun one. With me today is Rob Bergeron. Rob, I am so grateful that you carved out time in your incredibly busy schedule. I discovered you in your from your newsletter, The Daily Bergeron. Thank you for that, by the way. And and also from Off Market Deals, but I know you run several companies. Sure. And I'm gonna let you tell that story in a minute. But so first off, before we really get into this I am I am grateful that everybody listens to this show. I'm grateful for all the comments because it, it allows me to find people like Rob, actually that, that are able to come on the show. It also gives me ideas on topics that you folks are interested in. And if, One thing I do ask, though, and it's interesting, my, my folks here tell me that about 75% of you who listen to the show don't actually subscribe. You find me ad hoc. And, I'll tell you what one thing that does help us is if you do subscribe on whatever platform you, you hear us on that does help the co- the school, the... That does help the show grow, and I'm certainly grateful either way, but thank you for listening. And with that, Rob, welcome to the show, my man.

Rob Bergeron

Thank you

Ed Mathews

I wish they could hear the first 24 minutes of our conversation because I am so fired up. I'm glad I recorded most of it. Maybe we'll share it, who knows? But but for now we'll just stick to the show. Rob, welcome to the show. Thank

Rob Bergeron

you. Thank you for having me. Yeah. No, it's a pleasure.

Ed Mathews

Absolutely. Fellow New Englander?

Rob Bergeron

Yes, of course.

Ed Mathews

Yeah. So Rob for those folks who haven't discovered you- Sure why don't you tell us a little about who you are and what you do?

Rob Bergeron

I'm Rob Bergeron. I've been calling myself the tilapia of realtors, and I usually don't even mention I'm a realtor because I think it's there's a lot of realtors. But I do a lot of stuff. And I own a brokerage as well. But I don't know I just really fo- I'm, I... The tilapia of realtors, like focus on real estate investing. Ma- Malcolm Gladwell had this book or whatever. I don't know which one it was. But basically he talked about how no one wanted to do mergers and acquisitions, divorces, but the Jewish people were like, "Yo, we'll do it." And it ended up being the most lucrative law to practice, so that's why all the firms in York are all Jewish firms. And I look at it like this with real estate investing hey no one really wanted to work with them because they're not loyal or whatever. But I found if you just bring a lot of value and just solve a lot of problems for them they are pretty loyal. Absolutely. Or if not, you have volume, right? Yeah. And so yeah, I catered to them and there's a lot of up- reach repeat business. And then I just kept on finding more ways to serve them and then you just are built. You just

Ed Mathews

build. Yeah. It's not a loyalty thing, it's a coin operation thing. As, as as a friend of mine used to say, "We're coin operated. If we can create a relationship that becomes valuable to both of us, then, that relationship continues and grows." So Winner Realty, Property Partner, OffMarket.deals. I, there's probably others we haven't talked about, but let's pick a path and see where it goes. I'm curious about, you're based in Kentucky, right?

Rob Bergeron

Yeah.

Ed Mathews

Louisville. But you have, one of the interesting things about your perspective in the market is, you operate all across the US with- Yeah either through your partnerships or through your, your businesses directly. And I'm curious, what are you seeing in the, the US from a market trend perspective? And I know it varies from region to region. Sure. But, what are you seeing out there?

Rob Bergeron

A lot of d- doom and gloom, if you will. True. And like I write my newsletter every morning and it goes out at 5:00 AM, Monday through Friday. So I read the news and I aggregate the news a lot. Yeah. And it's really sad out there, but like I, I'm in Louisville and we're just very fortunate. We're like a turtle, slow to rise, slow to fall. Yeah. Same but like we're top three in rental appreciation and we're appreciating 4 to 5% every year. So we're top in the country there too, and we're just getting a ton of industrial stuff. And we're within six hours of 60% of the country, so tourism's great with bourbon Red River Gorge climbing, s- the second-best climbing in the world. And- Horses for horse racing, yeah. Black- Lexington. We are-

Ed Mathews

basketball

Rob Bergeron

yeah, we are just- Yeah we're really well positioned. It's a beautiful state, very affordable to visit relative to Chicago or Nashville, less touristy. We're number two in the country for independent restaurant scene in the whole country. Really? Yeah. And we've got like- Louisville? four sp- four sports museums. Yeah. Mu- Muhammad Ali, Louisville Slugger. Now we have this urban bourbon stuff. It's just very cool culture. That's right, Ali

Ed Mathews

is from there. I forgot about that.

Rob Bergeron

Yeah. Yeah, Diane Sawyer lived in my neighborhood.

Ed Mathews

No kidding. Growing up.

Rob Bergeron

Yeah.

Ed Mathews

Isn't that funny?

Rob Bergeron

Yep.

Ed Mathews

With regard to the market, right? You mentioned industrial and y- I was talking with another guest Gino Barbaro, actually. We were talking about- I know Gino. Yeah, me too. And and so we were talking about, the repatriation of manufacturing and how flex industrial has become a big thing, and it's become a big thing in our part of the world too up here in the Northeast. And I'm curious, is that... I- are you seeing that as well?

Rob Bergeron

Yeah. Yeah. Like we just got connected to this like I think it's the Pacific Rail or whatever, but like we just- connected from the West Coast for commercial rail lines. Yeah, we have the number... Okay, so USPS is headquartered here too. So everything ships to us and ships out. So we have the second-best freshest seafood in the whole country. Just really bizarre stuff. I think the industrial spaces like that used to be safe are safe still. But I think like things are moving and like what excites me right now is like energy, water, Okay land,

Ed Mathews

agriculture. W- when you say energy, are you talking about nuclear power feeding data centers or something else?

Rob Bergeron

So right now we're working with this company called Bloom Energy. Bloom Energy is really cool because they started Bloom Energy, which is natural gas, green energy, burns clean. They started it for their crypto miners. They needed more energy- for their crypto miners. And but then all these data centers came up and said, "Yo, we could use you too for energy." So we work with them right now, but we do have a horse in the nuclear like world. And that'll be awesome. It's crazy. It'll be out in 2027, first quarter. Bless you. And it's... They- it's a n- small nuclear reactior, reactor, sorry, and they put it a mile underground. Yeah. And it'll be a game changer. It's really cool. And basic- this is crazy. Basically China's going crazy with energy. And these five, six, seven companies or whatever, they go to the White House, they like, and meet, and then they change the rules, and then they all go back and play by the same rules because they're... we're so afraid of just falling behind.

Ed Mathews

Yeah.

Rob Bergeron

Yeah. And so it's crazy how rapid it's moving because it wasn't beginning of 2027, like four months ago. It was like 20- at least 2028 beginning for sure. And now we're, it's just moving so fast.

Ed Mathews

Yeah. I mean there are 94, 94 I think last count, nuclear, active nuclear reactors in the US and we need 4X that.

Rob Bergeron

Peter Thiel bought the only private nuclear facility in the entire country, and it's here in Paducah, Kentucky

Ed Mathews

How about

that?

Rob Bergeron

Yeah. We're very- Yeah,

Ed Mathews

and actually, was- did I read right that Microsoft bought Three Mile Island in Pittsburgh? I think they did. Somebody did.

Rob Bergeron

Okay. Can I tell a cool story about Three Mile Island? Absolutely. All right. My dad said he's the biggest failure of all of his cousins. I beg to differ. But one of his cousins, so in my family we have some cool generational stuff my dad's cousin built all the robots that cleaned out Three Mile Island.

Ed Mathews

Really?

Rob Bergeron

Yeah did it so no one would get radiation. Stuff like... It did all... That's so cool.

Ed Mathews

It is very cool. And yeah, now it's actually a functioning nuclear facility again, and I'm pretty sure, I wanna say it was Microsoft that either bought a portion of it or bought the entire facility to-

Rob Bergeron

It was- Make their data center I did see that. I don't know who it is. Yeah. It's a whole new world out there. It's really exciting. I'm working on this really cool data center project. I kinda wanna c- maybe inspire a little hope for people 'cause okay so I, I send my morning emails Monday through Friday, but we had this big announcement of this $5 billion data center in Oldham County, which is very well-to-do, if you will. And so on a Saturday, I sent an email out and said, "Hey, guys, I'm seeing this intersection be- between data and energy, and I wanna be a part of it. If you're in the space, hit me up. If you're not in the space, hit me up. We'll learn together." And this guy Mark reached out to me. And he already was, like, part of a data center project in, Texas, Odessa. And and it was, so he already had some experience but, he, we just started talking. He had been reading my morning email for five years and never said a thing. A lot of times I send those out and it feels like I'm shouting in the void, but, like-

Ed Mathews

You are. Yeah.

Rob Bergeron

Yeah.

Ed Mathews

And it's funny, only i- if the numbers are true from a radio perspective and they translate to our part of the world, it's 1 or 2% of your audience are the ones you hear from.

Rob Bergeron

Yeah. And most of them are just telling me like, like I like that track, the music I picked for the day.

Ed Mathews

Yeah.

Rob Bergeron

Which I love. It makes me feel good that they're, like, resonating with it. Yes. But yeah. And so he reached out and then this is so cool. Okay. So I told you before we got on air- Yeah Basically I own this company. It's now called OffMarket.deals, but it used to be called The Louisville Network. And essentially what it was is I said, "Yo, wholesaler..." I said, "Hey, go reach out to me with comp for comp. Send me the address and bed back now. I'll get it back to you as quickly as possible." Never ganked their deal, so I built a lot of trust. And I said, "Hey..." Usually it'd be like, "Hey, if you get that under, I've got a buyer for you." And then so then my weightlifting partner, we were in the hot tub and he's like, "Yo, that website you've been talking about building, I built it for you." So basically- Awesome I got all the wholesalers to give me their buyers list because of that goodwill I had built. We combined those lists with my also dope mega list, and then I said, "Hey, I'd only charge $2,000 if I bring the buyer." So they would submit their deal, it'd go out to my buyers list, and then first year I made $42,000 off of it. Good

Ed Mathews

for you. So

Rob Bergeron

yeah, it was awesome. And now it's OffMarket.deals. We're national and we have way more tech, way more cool stuff. But I basically, the, the big part of this is I united the tribes together, the wholesalers who were working against each other and thought they couldn't work together or were competitive. But no, let's create a tool that all of you can use and get more margins- Yeah get your deals sold higher clip. And then we also have contract to close and we just get rid of a lot of the friction. So- What I did the same thing with my business partner, Mark, in data centers. Basically we got to the top, top of the mountain, looked around and was like, "There's no one up at the top of the mountain." So what we did is we climbed back down and started just researching who's the best at what they do and who's the next best, like who's coming up.

Ed Mathews

Yeah.

Rob Bergeron

And I reached out to one of my fraternity brothers and he was the adult in the room so he couldn't plan parties. And he had t- he had... he's an architect, very well-known and he had mentioned about doing an LED platinum fraternity house. And so I slid into his DMs like, "Hey, Ben I'm working on this weird project where I wanna build consumer trust. Could we jump on a call and we could talk about it? I remember you talked about this thing." He's like, "Sure, we can talk tomorrow, 10:00 AM." So I tell him about these data center projects we have and what our vision was. He plugged us into this company called HKS. HKS is one of the largest engineering companies in the world. Yep. They did the SoFi Stadium for the Rams. They're doing the Commander Stadium coming up in Washington, DC. Yep. And it just so happened, three months earlier, they had opened up their data center division. And so we got plugged into that dude, Tony, who's awesome. And so basically we had taken all these meetings and we were able to leverage them or whoever was already working with us, and we found a way to shrink the footprints of data centers by 92%. And we... It's a closed loop. We bring our o- use our own water. It's 40 gallons per year per tank, and we bring our own energy with the Bloom or the, the nuclear option, which will be live in 2027. And- We can put them anywhere. And we our timelines are quicker than everyone else. We're, And our goal was to be the good neighbor data center. And because so we researched everyone to find out, like, how can we be better? And we brought all these things to the fee of HKS and said, "Help us put it together, engineering." And now we're building the institutional standard data center, in my opinion, of the future on, here on Earth, before it goes up into space. But there's going to be elements of space that has to come down. And I don't know, and one thing that's cool about us, since we're trying to be good neighbors, we build in manufacturing into the business model. So we bring jobs with our data centers. We're not false hopes. And so we don't have the noise because we use submergent cooling. And we're not loud. Everything that they hate we literally tried to address because we wanted to be good stewards of it. And no one ever, no one else was trying to do it and connect those dots. They were just all putting up those big boxes that everyone hated. And it's crazy. And so just a shout into the world in email led to us maybe making the industry standard for data centers here on Earth, all, universally across the whole world. And we think we solved it better. And so our goal is when people learn about our data center, that people will say if we have to have a data center in our city, it better be one of those good neighbor data centers." And damn it should. And not only that, we think most of our business will be retrofits of the bad neighbor data centers. Okay. Because not only can we shrink their footprints down, but that means we can float them all the way back up and still be good neighbors. So why build new data centers when we can just augment the ones you already have, which already have permits? They're getting It just solves a lot of problems. N- yeah- And so we're uniting it. Yeah, and I- Yeah we're we're ready to handle the pitchforks because w- we, if they have something, we'll be better next time we come around because we'll figure out a way to solve it. And we can bury them and we use a lot... That heat we use for farming and agriculture- Beautiful we really end up working with farmers because farmers are getting screwed right now. They've got the assets, they've got the land, and they're losing their farms to, to what? To taxes or- Yeah now that... I don't know. We're working on that too. It- Yeah there's just a lot of cool things, and when you unite causes towards one direction, people get in line and wanna be a part of big things. And if you sing the right song, they will- They will dance sing along or dance or whatever. And then the right people find you. They reach out. They'll respond to the email or join the newsletter and just find a way to resonate, and it's like, "Yo, let's hop on a call, find out what synergies we have." And people... I haven't been putting it out lately, but I have a you can book me, and I'd just be like, mentally be like, "Oh, I gotta put my shoes on, and so I can walk around the backyard," I don't know, but I think there's too much a non-collaboration in nearly every business, and I think- Without a doubt people just aligned. Yeah. We talked about alignment with our stuff before the, we recorded. Absolutely.

Ed Mathews

And- And it

Rob Bergeron

fits pretty You're scratching a problem that I have, and we have infinite supply of what would make your thing solve my

Ed Mathews

problem. Which is my problem. Yeah.

Rob Bergeron

Yeah. Exactly. So it's it's just awesome, and it would've never happened if, we weren't shouting to the universe,

Ed Mathews

right? Absolutely. And as you were talking, I was thinking, I own a domain that would, that I don't use that would be very useful to you that I'm more than happy to give you, so we'll talk about that offline before we-

Rob Bergeron

That's cool. You have, we we're really excited about the data centers, and we... And like I said, that aligns with the energy in the water. So the, these are horizontals. So that Bloom Energy, that company I talked about- Yep with natural gas.

Ed Mathews

Yep.

Rob Bergeron

You can pay nothing to put that anywhere because BlackRock will pay for it because they want the residuals for- Sure the rest of time. So let's let the average consumer get in on those horizontals, those residuals. Not let BlackRock, let us do it. Let the average person get in on... I don't know. It... We're just really excited, and when you bring the energy and water, and you bring, you have a data center anchor, master communities can be built out, deliberate communities. Intentional cities. I think rural America is about to be on a come-up. Kentucky is on a huge come-up. We're just so affordable. I don't know. I'm very excited about a lot of things.

Ed Mathews

Yeah. I don't wanna get in your way. Keep going.

Rob Bergeron

Well- Okay. So just one thing that's been working really well for me, and I guess I can do this for anyone in your audience if you just connect me to one person in your network that you trust. Okay. But I'm a big proponent on shooting your shot just collectively. Amen. Yeah, literally the way I met David Greene and connected with David Greene, the former host of BiggerPockets is I'm tenacious on everything. I write my morning email. You know what I do? I take out all my whatever and I put it on BiggerPockets subreddit. And so people find me, and so they were hearing BiggerPockets, and they didn't say Louisville, Kentucky, but they heard Louisville, Kentucky when he was talking. And so I had seven people, six people from California, one person from Illinois reach out to me, and I sa- finally I was like, "Illinois man," w- "How did you hear about me?" And they're like, "Oh, I heard BiggerPockets, but I heard Louisville, went to BiggerPockets, found you because you're the only person who posts ever." And and that's how we connected. So then I was like... And I- when I talked to him, too, I was waiting outside for Tyler Childers at this very small venue. Tyler Childers was, like, the house band when I was in college. Same with Sundy Best. Crazy life. But I called David Greene and said, "Yo, you've generated a ton of money for me. I'd love to bring work with you, bring some business back to you." So we went out to California to host a happy hour with David Greene. Yep. And I brought, I don't know, 16, 18 million in off-market deals. I brought property management. I brought title. I brought lenders. I brought everyone, Louisville to them, kinda like Carvana, right? I applied that model there. And we had a happy hour. It was great. Mike Butler was there as the property management. He wrote Landlording on Autopilot book. Loved his book, Landlording Literally on Autopilot. Mike's out of Louisville. Yeah. Love that. I work with Mike. He's out of Louisville. Louisville is just like this mecca for all these brains in real estate, and we have this one attorney, Harry Borders, who learned it all and then empowered all of us how to do it. And so we're just you go to a different market and we're just light-years ahead, but all these people are creating and talking to each other. Very collaborative market relative to others, where they're more closer to the chest on things, if you will.

Ed Mathews

Yeah. Yeah. I- it's amazing w- what being a, you referred to yourself, I think it was before we hit record, as a super connector. It's amazing- what happens in your world when, it's the old Zig Ziglar thing, right? If you connect enough people with what they need, they will eventually connect you with what you need, right? And that is 100% true, and you are living proof of that, my friend. So in terms of the market the real estate market, right? The world is shifting completely. And it's shifting in any number of ways, right? You've got you've got the, the, the, the interest rate issues, which I think are less of an issue than, than most people- Sure in that historically we're right down the middle. It's fine, right? Sure. Th- then you've got AI impinging upon everything, and there is a lot of snake oil and a lot and a little bit of reality. And, you've got the, the market rotation in terms of three years ago multi... or four years ago multifamily was white hot, and it's cooled off, but I think it's cooled off in, in, in the right way, right? It's settled back into historical means. I think the same thing is happening with single family here in the Northeast. And I would I would love your input on that. What's your crystal ball? What do you see coming over the next, say, three years?

Rob Bergeron

CBRE said that the number one asset class to invest in Louisville, Kentucky is multifamilies, and they announced that- No,

Ed Mathews

today last

Rob Bergeron

week. Yeah, today. Really? Yeah, because we're, we have, like- E- even right now, which is technically like a seller's market collectively- Sure our, we have less supply that technically s- we're at two and a half months, which still is a seller's market in Louisville, Kentucky. So we're like- Seller's market everywhere. Two and a half months, not a lot we're very even. Yeah, very even, and we're just so affordable. And now, I don't know why, but New York Times, Wall Street Journal in the last few weeks have both done very affordable to be a millionaire in Kentucky, and it's I don't know. I don't... The other one was, like, top 10 least amount of money you have to live comfortably in Louisville was in the top 10 or whatever. Got it. I don't know. It's it's gonna be weird because there's so many disrupting things coming like automations for selling real estate. I mean- Yeah and then automations for building houses like 3D printing, and we do 3D printing with our data centers too. We're working with the largest 3D printing company in the world, and we connect to them with HKS. So we have a lot of cool things that we're connecting, but it, like 3D printing, it's not viable to do a neighborhood unless you have 50 houses. Sure. It's... I don't know. But we, but it is worth it doing 3D-printed steel relative to lumber if you have 40 houses. So and I admit... okay, so the thing I was gonna appeal to your audience that I can teach that person in their network, I've forgot where I was going. ADD. Sure. But one thing that I've been doing is my clients, I say, "Yo hit me up if you're looking for something." So they reach out to me, give me their buy box. I get their proof of funds, preapproval, whatever, and then I'm sending letter of intents out, and I'm like I think I'm an avid AI user. I don't know how to code. I think I can vibe code. I think that's what I'm doing sometimes. But essentially, they give me their buy box. I find everything that meets it. I come in at the terms they want. If someone says yes, cool, we move forward. If they say no, we don't. But I look at it as planting seeds, and postcards, you're spending money to send stuff, and it's a 1.1% hit rate. So- I have a two, 2.1% hit rate, no money attached.

Ed Mathews

So let me back that up. Sure. I wanna dig into that a little bit. So you're sending blind letters of intent.

Rob Bergeron

No. I- they're targeted. It's bas- my, my clients- I

Ed Mathews

mean unsolicited, not blind.

Rob Bergeron

They're list- these are listed properties, so they're, like, trying to get offers. These are for sale by owners who are trying to get offers. Okay. And my logic is I wanna hit them when time and circumstance meet, and- I don't know. Plant the seed now and then see who comes back in the next six to eight weeks- 'cause things change. And I don't know. So it's important for me, so I try to find someone for each asset class so I get a touch. But I'm also a realtor, so I also send a one-pager about what our brokerage looks like, what our structures are financially, because I wanna be someone's second option. At least they have that one soft touch from me that if something were to happen with their brokerage or there was a merger with PE and they didn't, it didn't feel good to them inside, or they didn't- Yeah they stopped seeing the value. I think we're in the NIL era of real estate where everyone needs to earn everyone's business, and I'm, I think I'm probably not well known. Wouldn't

that

Ed Mathews

be, isn't that unique?

Rob Bergeron

Yeah. Yeah. And I I'm very well-equipped because I have so much AI abilities and different ways to touch people. The reason the LOI's so cool is me owning the brokerage is I'm touching only people that have listings, only people with production. So you're, that's exactly who I want. But I, actually, to lean into the Winner Realty a little bit, it's I think the market's shifting. We you asked earlier, like- Yeah what's it gonna look like? And so for me, I'm, like, looking at realtors at maybe a big box brokerage, and they're all trying to do the same one trick in a market that doesn't really want that trick right now. So no one's really talking to them. And it's, that stinks. But at Winner Realty, we empower agency. Yo, learn assignments so you can legally call them outright. But learn how to assign. Learn what a novation is. Learn how to do offer seller financing or, "Hey, let me list this as a lease option." Like- they need to have these tools. And so I built out this thing called Rob's Brain which they can call or text, send screenshots to, whatever, and it has all those things in there. I created guides for all of them because I wanted to empower them to make money in other ways besides waiting for a deal to close every 30, 60 days. Yep. So th- then I built out this thing called Winner Services. Agents at Winner Realty, they can go and for free get their real estate license and get paid on that. Winner Realty agents can get paid on commercial lending now. Winner Realty agents can get paid for oil and gas. Winner Realty agents can get paid for selling our water treatment center, BioPure. They can get paid on sourcing data center land. They There's just, like, all kinds of things. And so the goal is to just keep on adding stuff to that. And we were kinda talking about it a little bit before, I'm worried about my friends losing their jobs and whatever. Yeah. And so I wanted to have something, like, when there's stress say, "Hey I've got these 10 things. Read them all. See which one you gravitate towards." Driving for dollars can be one of those things. Sure. Gig economy stuff really I don't know. So I don't know. I like to keep creating every day. I do my systems, three or four things, so I feel like I'm do- putting Realtor Rob out into the world. Yep. But then I just kinda go wherever I want, create. I make a lot of music, go on walks. I sun a lot. I don't know. Yeah. Just whatever feels right.

Ed Mathews

Yeah. But the, the three or four things every day is what, i- is what moves the needle, right?

Rob Bergeron

Yep, yep. Yeah. Consistency.

Ed Mathews

So Rob, I'm curious about what gets you out of bed on Monday morning. I can't wait for the answer. Obviously you've done very well. You don't go to work 'cause you have to, you go to work you get to go to work.

Rob Bergeron

No, I have to go to work. I have- All right. Stop. I, we all have our foibles. I gotta earn. I gotta earn. But

Ed Mathews

no- but what But it's not just that,

Rob Bergeron

right? No. No. I'm aligned with what I want in life when I wake up on Monday. My brokerage, Winner Realty, we donate 1% of net profits to Hand In Hand. Hand In Hand- What's that? Tell me all about it it's a nonprofit. My mentor, Harry Borders, that attorney that empowered everybody with all these cool skills for investing he... this is Belize. He said, "Yo Rob, do you wanna go on a trip with me to go build a house?" And I had kinda ended it with a business partner 'cause I realized they were working on some side projects and not the main project and whatever. But I was kinda in the dumps and I was like, "You know what? Sure." So I went and, it was like 10,000 total for the group to build a house for a family. The family helped other families build houses. All they had to do was bring the land and do these things to validate themselves. And w- we put up a house in three days, and it really inspired me, like- one day I was in the bus after working and I checked my email and oh, one of my off-market deals had sold and I made two grand. And the average Belizean person makes 1,900 a year. And I was like, "Wow, I need them to be able to have enough time to sit down and think of, 'Whoa, what are other ways I can create and earn?'" And I I can help do that for those kids and those families by helping put a house in there. So I've done... I've been a part of five houses now. Wow. And but the agents at my brokerage have the opportunity to offer match my 1% as well. And so the goal is, and I know this leads to one of your later questions, but I'll just answer it now. My legacy, I don't have any kids, I don't... i'm not married or anything like that. And so my goal is I want my business to be able to afford one of those houses every single month in perpetuity forever, and that's 10,000 a month forever. And I know those, the, the nonprofit will be good stewards of that money. I know that the people building the houses, the families themselves, and the people that have to help build houses to get their house, they're good stewards of it, and it just, it felt really right to me. Awesome yeah. And so-

Ed Mathews

Repeat, repeat the name of the charity again, please.

Rob Bergeron

Hand in Hand.

Ed Mathews

Okay.

Rob Bergeron

Yeah. They're awesome. B- based

Ed Mathews

here in the States or based in Belize?

Rob Bergeron

Here in Louisville. They've been i- operating- Yeah for 25 years. A lot of high school student groups go out there and build the houses, youth groups, whatever. But people all over the country go. You can book a week and they have a house for you, security, driver, people that help with the build that can build it themselves, so you're not gonna... You're there to g- we could all get nail guns and just do it, but no, you're there to bang a hammer and get the experience, so yeah, it's a great thing and it feels good and my agents resonate with it. It's on all of our signs, the logo, because we, they have 25 years. People were like, "I know what that is." And I, it, so I wake up and, like, when I try to earn, I know that my money is aligned with what I want to support. Not only just helping people buy and sell houses, but p- put people in houses.

Ed Mathews

Right on. That's awesome. So you've mentioned your mentors a couple of times during this conversation. Yeah. I'm curious about the best advice you've ever got. I know that's a big question. And who gave it to you?

Rob Bergeron

I'm gonna parlay or just step aside on that one a little bit. That, this thing came to my head, I just felt like I had to say. There's this book called The Power of Moments, and it's not a business book. It's not about it. It's short. You can f- it's a short audiobook. And really the beginning is what got me. It trailed off at the end. So just really focus on the first beginning. But it was about how we live our life in plateaus and not enough mountains, and it's about what are the small, simple things we can do to create more mountains for people that we love in our life, for ourselves, whatever. And for yourself, that's romanticizing making your coffee. I cut some flowers from my garden and put them in a vase for me and no one else. I don't know. You can make things special for yourself, but, like- Sure what is $5 worth of water balloons the last day your kids come home from school and you ambush them, that's a memory, a core memory they might have, and it took you 10 minutes and $5 of water balloons. And, like, how can you do that for your employees? My, one of my, someone who works with me, Colleen, she mentioned "Oh, Rob, I love that record you have. But I saw that as like a collector thing it was, like, very expensive on Amazon." Her Christmas gift was that record. I like serving and I like, like when someone gets sick, they're, I see it on Facebook, I like sending Panera and just like not, maybe even they don't know it's me. I just I like feel goods. I like aligning all my stuff with feel goods. Like wholesaling's like, something that's really important. I think it's a way for people to get in to being, running a business and doing a business that has low entry-level. It- j- being a realtor you have to have a high school degree, but there's no barriers of entry for wholesaling. But a lot of people come from different backgrounds and socioeconomic backgrounds for wholesaling. And so it was important for me to, with the offmarket.deals, to create like a level playing field to get those deals disseminated. So it goes out with lending terms, it goes out with comps. We try to validate their en- enrich their dialogue. So everything goes out with the end consumer, and like, why would I want to buy that? Where is that located in proximity to things that I can place in my brain?

Ed Mathews

Yeah.

Rob Bergeron

Stuff like that. So we just I'm very big on empowering, and then there's, people try to learn think they have to learn the whole business. Okay, you, we help you get the deal. We'll give you our data and we're gonna work with you to, all that. And then cool, you got the deal and, or you need, you have some objections? Cool. Talk to Rob's brain, it'll help handle your objections from the seller so you can articulate the best way that works for both of you. We'll give plenty options. Okay, cool, you got it under contract with an A to B to C novation contract, whatever you, we already gave you to keep you legally compliant. Okay, cool, now you put it up on the website, submit it. Goes out to our buyers list, we blast it out, put it everywhere that you would've put it. And then we hopefully bring up, bring back a buyer and, oh cool, we get it under contract, get it to title. Colleen will handle contract to close. Go get, all you deal with is motivated sellers. That's all you do every day, and get really good at that thing and you're gonna win. And that's where your system and our, my, ours, what I have with the property partners it just aligns. And we could have come at each other "Oh, I gotta hold stuff back because we're, we do similar stuff." But no. It's like, let's synergize. Let's work together. Let's go be at that top of the mountain together, 'cause that's just where we wanna go.

Ed Mathews

Yep.

Rob Bergeron

I'd rather see something happen than not happen.

Ed Mathews

Right on. Right on. So you know, obviously you've got a lot of moving parts in your life, and I'm sure you make about 15 to 50 decisions a day and, you're human, so you don't get them all right? Sure. So what's a business call that you made that you look back on and go, "Man, I would love to have that one back," and how'd you manage your way through it?

Rob Bergeron

Okay. I, I have a bad acting business partner and I've been in this lawsuit for a long time. And reflecting on it, I think I could have known better because of this. What I... I'm a realtor. I serve a lot of people, investors that are flips and BRRRRs or whatever. So I knew who was good. I represented them. I saw all the money they made on their HUDs, you know, and I was... I got a HELOC on my house 'cause I did a slow BRRRR. I lived and renovated my house, got a HELOC, and I would, I owned an off-market deals website, so I get deals brought to me all the time. Sure. And I said, "Yeah, I've got this deal. I've got the down payment. Y- you- we'll do a 50/50 partnership. You just manage it, and then w- they're gonna be Airbnbs, then we'll co-manage it together." They didn't have any money in the deal, and so my stuff just kept on going to the back burner, and they weren't doing anything, and then they just became a bad actor.

Ed Mathews

Yeah.

Rob Bergeron

And one, I needed to have systems in place to be like, "All right. I need to follow up in two weeks and say, 'What's new?'" All right, at three months, I'm, we, I need to do a site visit with them and already have that stuff approved and defined. I had a land trust and all that stuff, but it could've been defined better on what their relationships were. So I think getting ahead on the front end, talking to your best friend, Claude Copilot, Cowork, or whatever, and- Yeah and figuring out the best way to make sure everything's just ironed out. So I guess, and you think you know their character, but it you're not their business partner. They were working for themselves, and and I had a, I have other business partners where I had the same exact relationship and had completely different experiences that were good.

Ed Mathews

Yeah.

Rob Bergeron

You just don't know until but the best you can do is, on the front end, is work with a smart attorney and get your ducks lined, and join your local REIA, and ask for advice and best practices, and it's okay to ask questions and learn and whatever. You

Ed Mathews

should. Absolutely. Yeah. Without a doubt. I'm curious about how you take in information. What's the, the e- the either physical or virtual book on your nightstand?

Rob Bergeron

Yeah. So I'm ADD. Like I, I do a lot of Twitter, but I'm like, I got rid of all the bullshit, if you will. I went to Claude and said, "Yo, give me the best follows for data centers. Give me the best follows for real estate and the best data," whatever, because I need really great information to populate really good newsletters every day. I feel like a responsibility to bring, lead with value or, put something out there for people to think on. And so I did that with all my social media, LinkedIn, Twitter, subreddits, everything. And so I'm just hit with a lot of that stuff. That being said I feel like that's eating chips a lot of times. I still get sucked into the repetition and all that. Sure. And I like sports, so I just, whatever, so I have that in there, too. But I realized I need less chips and more steak, which is these more heartier books. Yeah. Mo- most recently I've been reading Count of Monte Cristo. Oh, okay. This book called Swan's Way which was crazy, and then t- this morning I was reading Ben Franklin. And then I'll go out into the hammock and sun and I'll bring Walt Whitman's book about, like, when he traveled America. And then sometimes when I wanna feel phil- philosophical, I'll read Walden, where he lived alone in the woods in a cabin by the water and just thought. And I don't know, I'm trying to stretch myself and chew on those things. I don't even make much progress in e- any of these books. I've got Siddhartha sitting out. Like I, but I like, I'm like, "What am I gonna gravitate to? What do I need to hear?" And and I like it and I highlight and I keep on having this weird thought, but I'm an- I'm excited to think that after I die, someone is going to get my books, and they're going to read through and be like, "Why did this strange person highlight this thing?" And something about that is very comforting to me. I don't know why.

Ed Mathews

I don't know. Trying to unlock Rob's brain, right?

Rob Bergeron

A little bit yeah. Or just a peek into whoever this stranger was before me really valued this thing. Like, why?

Ed Mathews

Yeah, that's very cool. How do you define success in your life?

Rob Bergeron

For me, a lot of it was like I just need to get those families one house a month. That's- that will be a success once I hit that. But, I'd like to think I'll get there quicker and then I'll have to create other means for success. And so for me I'm big on shooting your shot, but I just create. Like- Yeah I might write three songs and throw them up on YouTube in one day. I might knock out four of my morning newsletters because I was just on a roll, feeling great. I might come up with a business model and talk to Claude about it for three hours, and then just have it sitting on my computer. Maybe I'll revisit it. I don't know. And that's where our... I have ideas, so when I talk to people and they have something, I can be like, "Oh, look, I built out this franchise model for Airbnbs like 10 years ago." Look at that. And and it's really, since ADD, Rob, it's very scattered brain. The AI makes it all linear, and so people are like, "Oh, I get it now. This makes sense." And so that's been really valuable for me because I like- And I don't maybe connect the dots for everyone on everything, but now if I just word vomit it's there

Ed Mathews

Yeah. So there's a tool, just to get a little geeky on you, called Obsidian.

Rob Bergeron

Yeah.

Ed Mathews

It bas- Are you familiar with it?

Rob Bergeron

No. No.

Ed Mathews

So it's something you can connect to Claude, and it's so also an ADD brain here, ADHD. And one of the things, I asked my college roommate years ago, I said, what's it like to have a conversation with me?" He goes, "Here's what it's like. We can be talking about something going on in our lives, our wives or our kids, and you'll see something shiny or think of something in your head, and you'll be like, 'Hey, d- did you hear about this? We have to go tell... Let's go... You wanna go ride bikes?'" He goes, "Ed, it's maddening having a conversation with you," right? And what this tool has done for me and I was very forthright with... I'm very forthright with my relationship with Claude, and said- Yeah "Hey, look, I've got ADHD. Part of your job in my l- in my world is to keep me, A, keep me on the rails so I can get the three or four things done I need to get done." "But also, I want you to capture all the other stuff and help me make sense of it," right? And so Obsidian is basically a cloud. It's a thought cloud. It's basically a technology that organizes all that. So if you can walk through and go, I was talking about," use your example of a franchise, "six weeks ago, I was talking with this guy about a franchise, and I know I captured it here in Claude because I remember having that conversation with you. Can you bring that back? And how does that tie in with the other things I'm doing here, and here?" And it will make those connections- That's awesome and then lay it. It's amazing just- That's great 'cause I'm a notorious brain stormer, right? I'd- Yeah wake up at 3:00 and go, "I just had this dream and I wanna talk about this, and I wanna look into this a little further. And let's, you know- Yeah I got an idea about that," and, so on and so forth, and it just organizes everything. It's amazing. I'll send you the link to it. It's really- Hell yeah your geeky guys can help you with it. And it's a five-minute connection. It's easy.

Rob Bergeron

Hell yeah. I c- we could all use a little more function in our life.

Ed Mathews

Yeah. It's not even function. It's just it's a place to dump it all, and then when you wanna recall it, you don't have to sit there and go... So I'm in my 50s, right? Yeah. So I don't remember quite as well as you do. No. But the, it allows me to not lose all of those things, right? Where normally I would have a notebook or something that I would trail along, and if it was in the notebook that I was, that I had in my hands, I'd remember. And if it was the one six notebooks ago, I had to go hunting for it, and sometimes I found it and sometimes I didn't.

Rob Bergeron

Wow. That's- Problem solved that's fun.

Ed Mathews

Yeah. So when you're not talking about real estate or all of your other ventures, what else do you like to do for fun?

Rob Bergeron

I, like I said, I like write music quite a bit. I'm reading a lot, sunning a lot. I think with my morning newsletter too, is I talk about whatever's interesting to me or curious, and then that resonates with people. And so a lot of my friends have come from me just saying weird stuff. And "Oh, I listen to that band." D- and we were at the same show back in 2020 and we didn't know it or whatever. And so those people are bringing their okay, curious people are interesting, right? And like, all the curious people have all these weird curiosities that they bring back to me. And that's your tribe. If you you're curious. That's why you build. I don't know. I think it's hard to make friends sometimes. And so just maybe if you are Like, my newsletter just gave me a really cool place to put out me and whatever, and let people decide if they wanted to be a part of it. And I think if you guys did that on your social media platforms, maybe about that weird thing you're excited about, like if you found one other person that was excited about it, it could be huge for you to nerd out and build. And now you have Claude, so we can create and create for days. And- I don't know, we all bring different skills.

Ed Mathews

Yep, absolutely. Absolutely. So Rob if somebody wants to learn more about you or your newsletter or anything else that you're doing, what's the best way to do that?

Rob Bergeron

All right, guys. Go follow my newsletter if you'd like. It's called The Morning Bergeron. It's B-E-R-G-E-R-O-N. If you're looking for off-market deals, like assignable contracts or whatever, go to offmarket.deals or google Off Market Deals, that's us. And join our buyers list. And we have great plugs for like insurance and like my CPA. I give all my agents my CPA, I get paid nothing for it, and he just saved me so much money on taxes. So now I just say, "Hey, I know tax season's here. Hit me up." I send him, in two days, I send him 120 referrals. They- they're in Bardstown, Kentucky, where all the bourbon's at, and they had to open an office in Louisville because I sent them so many clients.

Ed Mathews

That's awesome. That's- Yeah that's phenomenal.

Rob Bergeron

Yeah. And all those people are saving money, and I'm not making any money on it, but I'm happy they are. Yeah, but you're- That's money in their pocket they can invest,

Ed Mathews

again, help enough people where they wanna go, they'll help you get where you want to go. That's it.

Rob Bergeron

Yeah.

Ed Mathews

That is it. Rob Bergeron, thank you so much for your time today.